


0800-Jesus

by whoredini



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Conversation, Excuse to indulge my religious streak, First Meetings, Fluff, John is a Christian, M/M, Pre-Slash, Sherlock is Sherlock, evangelism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-28 12:26:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10100759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whoredini/pseuds/whoredini
Summary: John attempts to evangelise Sherlock.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Partly inspired by a tweet from @au_idea_bot.

“Yes?”

John stifled a sigh. The voice on the other end sounded posh, irritated, deep and sexy, but mostly irritated. John could relate; he found his enthusiasm for winning souls waning rather starkly after five hours straight of calls to complete strangers, many of them abusive.

Still, he had made a promise, so he persevered.

“Hello sir,” John said into his headset, “do you have a moment to talk about our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ?”

“If by ‘Lord and Saviour’ you mean the fiction created by the simple-minded to cope with the crushing immensity of a cold and impersonal universe--” the man began, his tone dismissive and contemptuous and bored, and whose voice could do all that at once, anyway?

“Yeah him,” John said, rolling his eyes to no one in particular. The small office was empty save him, a computer, a lamp, a fern, the cold dregs of a cup of coffee, and the atheist on the other end of the line.

“Not interested,” the man said immediately.

“Yeah, something gave it away,” John muttered. “You know, a simple ‘no’ might have sufficed.”

“ _You_ called _me_!” the man snapped.

“I’m only trying to save your bloody soul, aren’t I!” John returned, in the same tone.

“I’ve been reliably informed that I don’t have one.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” John said on reflex, but amended it: “No, of course you have one, it’s just buried under a lot of wank.”

There were a few seconds of silence. John was sure Deep Throat would hang up in a huff – oh, and he didn’t blame him, John was shit at evangelism – but no, the git stayed on the line.

“You’re not a very good Christian you know,” the man pointed out.

“Well according to you it’s a fiction of my simple-minded, cosmically-overwhelmed brain, so what did you expect?”

“I’m not sure. Isn’t there something about sin? I can’t remember – must’ve deleted it.”

John readjusted his butt on the squeaky office chair and checked the clock on the wall. “Summary: sin equals bad.”

“Dull,” the man complained. The line rattled like he was moving around on the other end. After a moment the noise settled.

“Thank you for your time,” John said, blithe. “I won’t take up any more--”

“What?” demanded the man. “That’s it? You haven’t even really tried, have you!”

“I don’t sense an impending conversion,” John pointed out, his tone so dry it chafed on the way out. He glanced at the clock again. “Besides, I have to--”

“You haven’t got anywhere to be,” said Deep Throat. He sounded very confident. It was, John thought, the kind of confidence begging to be asked “Why?”

“Good night,” John told the man brightly, “and God bless!”

John rang off and started the tedious process of untangling himself from the headset and shutting the computer off. Just before he clicked the program they used closed, it began flashing with an incoming call. John checked the number against the printout he’d been using. Sure enough, it was Irritated Trombone.

John considered, but decided against answering. Posh n Deep could leave a voice message for Ella to deal with in the morning – after all, that was literally her job description. He was just a volunteer. He pulled on his coat, locked the office behind him, and set off for the tube station a few blocks away.

Yeah, so calling people to talk about Jesus after hours wasn’t something John had ever imagined he’d be doing. He’d hardly even been a churchgoer before the war. Baptisms, weddings, funerals – that about covered it. But then he’d been shot in Afghanistan. It was a bad wound, followed by an even worse infection. He should have died, which was why he’d been thinking, _Please, God, let me live._ Thinking it? In retrospect it was probably a prayer. John hadn’t expected it to work. He hadn’t expected to live.

But he survived, against all odds. The staff used the m-word a lot when he was recovering. And the more he heard it, the more John began to wonder. Wonder, and feel guilty in a non-specific way.

He’d been back in London a week when he spotted the church. It was around the corner from his bedsit, too small to be so Gothic-looking. He went one Sunday, then another. The minister was nice – Ella, an intelligent black woman who could stare down ice. She’d been the one to suggest he get involved in evangelism. It was part of his PTSD treatment, forcing him to interact with the world.

Or teaching him to control his temper issues, but whatever.

John had only been standing around in the artificially-lit tube station a few minutes when his mobile phone started ringing. The screen didn’t show any number, just “Unknown”. He was tempted to ignore it, but with his luck, it would be the clinic and there would be some kind of emergency.

“Dr. Watson speaking,” he answered, trying not to let his grimace colour his tone.

“A doctor,” said a deep male voice, “how _interesting_.”

“I—what— _you_!” John spluttered.

“The name’s Sherlock Holmes if you were curious.” There was a deep sigh. “You’re at the tube station. If it’s the one I think it is – and I’m sure it is – there’s going to be a delay. Might as well sit down.”

“How on earth is this happening?” John demanded. “Where’d you get my number?”

“Oh, so it’s okay if _you_ do it, but not me, gotcha.” The man – Sherlock Holmes – what a name – vibrated smugness.

“Your number was listed!” John protested.

“So was yours,” Sherlock replied smoothly.

“No, it isn’t!” John argued, thinking even as he did so, _I can’t believe I’m arguing with this berk!_ “I haven’t even had it-- Oh, you dick,” John realised.

“No, do go on, Dr. Watson,” Sherlock implored. It sounded like he was smiling. “I have your surname and your cell number already, but any more detail you’d like to provide...”

“What do you want?” John demanded, but much of the heat had gone out of it. He sat down, keeping as far away from the few other people as possible. And, there really was a bloody delay.

“You don’t have anywhere you need to be,” Sherlock said. “Why the rush to get there, then?”

“I—What makes you think I haven’t got anywhere to be?”

“Dr. Watson, you work the graveyard shift of an evangelism ministry on a volunteer basis. You’re single, then, and not just single but unattached. A day-time job with free evenings and you choose to do dial-a-Jesus? You’re either a loner or a zealot, and I don’t think you’re a zealot.”

Dial-a-Jesus? Good Lord. But it was uncanny.

“Look, do I know you from somewhere?” John asked, suspicious. “If this is Bill’s doing, I swear to--”

“Isn’t that blasphemy?” wondered Sherlock.

“--I will kick his arse all the way back to Ireland, do you understand?”

“Perfectly, but I’m afraid I don’t know any Bill.” The man sighed like he was luxuriating in being a smug git. Oh, he probably was.

“Then how’d you know all that? About—being unattached?” John couldn’t help a furtive look around like Harry was about to pop out from behind a pillar demanding to know why he hadn’t returned any of her thirteen phone calls.

“Like I said, it’s obvious from your volunteering.”

“It really isn’t,” John insisted.

“Very well,” Sherlock said, pleased but clearly pretending not to be, “where to start? For one thing, you’re doing telephonic evangelism on a Friday night – no close friends, then, or you’d be out with them – people do that sort of thing I hear – and no partner or you’d be with them. _If_ you had a partner you’d probably be going door-to-door with pamphlets or something similarly tedious, but people aren’t likely to let a stranger into their house when he’s all alone, so you got stuck with phoning people. On a Friday night, been doing it for, what, a month or more at least? Like I said: single, unattached, loner.”

“You’re having me on,” John returned, sceptical. “How could you possibly know how long I’ve been doing this?”

“The disillusionment’s already set in,” said Sherlock.

There was a beat of silence – well, near silence: Sherlock was moving around again.

“That’s—wow,” John said before he could stop himself. He regretted it instantly. He bit his lip and glanced around, but no one was paying him any mind.

“You think so?” Sherlock asked, tone imperious.

“Yeah—I mean, I guess,” John admitted.

“So why then?”

“Why what?”

“Why were you in such a hurry to get home?” Sherlock wanted to know, impatient. “There’s no one there. You probably don’t even have a plant.”

John sucked in a breath, held it, looked around again. Blew his breath out. Was he really telling this to a stranger? On the other hand, this was the most interesting conversation he’d had in weeks.

“Routine’s – yeah, routine’s good, or so they say.”

“Aha!” Sherlock said. “ _War veteran!_ It was either that or prison – but this is more interesting. So which was it, Afghanistan or Iraq?”

“Wait – you phoned me thinking I might be an ex-convict?” John asked Sherlock, just as a woman entered John’s immediate vicinity. She gave him a look and pointedly put a few paces between them.

“Or a retired soldier,” Sherlock said, all innocence.

“You’re mental. I could be dangerous,” and damn it all if John wasn’t smiling into his mobile phone, much to the female commuter’s discomfort.

“Yet here we are.”

“What did you think I might be in for?” John wondered.

“Your evangelism technique,” Sherlock responded dryly, drawing a bark of laughter from John. But even as he laughed he was thinking that he shouldn’t. That he should ring off and forget this conversation and forget this man, before… Well, before he _couldn’t_.

“My train’s here,” John said, just as the first screech and shudder of the impending train started up from the tunnel.

“So it is,” Sherlock noted, but he was harder to hear.

“Look I’m—it was nice talking,” John said, finding his voice more honest than he’d have liked it to be. “And sorry for trying to save your soul,” he added, trying to lighten his tone.

“No harm no foul, Dr. Watson,” said Sherlock, voice inscrutable.

“Goodbye, Sherlock.”

But the line went dead as John said it. He stared at his mobile like an idiot for a second or two before depositing it in his pocket with a sigh. The train had rolled in, smelling faintly like oil and dust and takeaways, a smell that took John back to his uni days.

He boarded, giving the other commuters a wide berth. The train was half-empty, with only a few seats taken. He sunk into a seat with a twinge of discomfort, wondering about the man he’d just spoken to.

How had he known all the things he had?

“Pardon me,” said a deep voice. John followed it up a lanky, well-dressed frame to an intelligent face that was all lips and cheekbone, angular planes topped with dark, artfully disheveled curls.

John was very proud of himself for snapping his mouth shut as quickly as he did.

The man was smiling at him, a barely-there kind of smile that verged on a smirk. It so clearly said “Gotcha!” He had a sheaf of pamphlets in one gloved hand. Rearranging his features into a polite expression, he handed John one.

“Do you have a moment to talk about our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ?”

_End._

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this to indulge my theory that John is at least marginally religious. Also, my soul needed snark.
> 
> If you spot any errors or typos, be a dear and let me know.
> 
> Thank you for reading :)


End file.
